Well, the Empire Strikes Back, it would seem?
A crowd of the regular AV/AM boys have gotten together and started to address the issue of "scareware" by producing a "whitelist"
Please look here:
http://www.techworld.com/security/ne...&NewsID=119239
Not all the more obscure stuff will be included, but I think I am OK in saying that the free tools that regular AO contributors recommend are pretty safe, as we have tested them ourselves first ;)
In general, if it is free it won't be "scareware", because that isn't their business model............but "free" doesn't mean "safe" or "effective"........
EDIT:
Sorry folks, I forgot to post the link to the real site, as the newslink will probably die:
http://www.ccssforum.org/software-vendors.php